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2019 Power Rankings-Week 8
Introduction Hey Squad! Another week in the LOC books. A muddled playoff picture got a little murkier as a few underdogs got victories, making the competition for the 5th and 6th seeds particularly heated. In the 10-team era, this is the fourth time that there have been six teams below .500 through seven weeks. It's not uncommon, but it is interesting. In those seasons, the top two teams were all 6-1, with the exception of The Shotti Bunch in 2016 (5-2). In 2012, last place Why am I doing This was 2-5. They were tied with four other 2-5 teams, but they were being outscored by everyone else in the league by close to 200 points. So they were in 10th place. That team ended up making the playoffs as the 6th seed. So as bad as it feels for a lot of us, nothing is out of the question at this point in the season. I think that the two trades we have seen have indicated that all ten teams believe they are still in the race for the 2019 Eternal Cup of Glory. Ten Worst Records Through 7 Games (LOC History) One team has a tougher challenege ahead than the rest and that's Sweet Dee. The defending champ will need to, at the very least, go 5-1 to get to the 6-7 record they had during their Glory Bowl season and have a shot at making the Festival of Champions. She has the fifth worst record through seven weeks in LOC history: Point Margin Between Top and Lowest Scorer For the second year in a row, the point difference between the top scorer and the lowest scorer is narrower than every year from 2011-2017. Season Result of Top Scoring Team This is a good trend for Bell, who will look to become the fourth straight top scoring team through the first half of the season to win the Glory Bowl. LOL at me in 2015. Fuck me. Trades By Year Another trade went down this week, as Papa sent LeSean McCoy to momma in exchange for MVS (I'm too lazy to attempt a spelling of the Packer WR's name). It was like Juju/Freeman Lite. As I announced in the thread, I have processed this trade manually after the 24-hour mark for league veto. I hate that Yahoo's system only processes trades at 3am (midnight west coast). So 24 hours, if you complete a trade in the morning, is actually 48 hours. It got me thinking about how few trades there have been and how rare it is that we are this far into the season without any tanking teams selling players for picks. For the sake of this exercise I decided to exclude joke trades (in 2016 me and Paddock traded 13 round picks, sparking an onslaught of random teams trading same round picks with Pat). Series Recaps * Duck Punchers ties the franchise series with RIPDab (5-5). Next Matchup: Week 13 * After bringing the series to 3-3, Papa has lost a league record SEVEN straight games to Garoppoblow Me, dating back to 2014. GBM is well in command in this series (10-3). Next Matchup: N/A * After scoring 178.52 in September against Mama, Pain Train mightily improved and scored 178.60 in their rematch. Momma has now tied the series after sweeping the 2019 double-header (7-7). Next Matchup: '''N/A * Sweet Dee finds new ways to lose. In their matchup earlier this season, P9 won 319-268. This time around, P9 won 166-159. P9 now leads the series (7-5). '''Next Matchup: '''N/A * The Shotti Bunch leads the series against Bell of Da Ball (3-1). '''Next Matchup: Week 11 Best Record Through Three Seasons Bell can still finish 17-22 at best and 11-28 at worst. Survivor Update No one was eliminated in week 7 and everybody picked Minnesota on Thursday night so nobody will be eliminated in week 8 either. Butt is still eliminated. Monthly Meetings - RIPDab Here is this weeks chart showing which months RIPDab has played each team (minimum 3 seasons) in the LOC through the 2019 regular season: Things that jump out to me: *RIP might be the only team that has played every team in December. *Shotti Bunch having six December showdowns with RIPDab is just bananas. *GBM and RIP are November warriors. No November meetings between Pain Train and RIP. Stat Chat (LXC) This week I am taking a break from the LOC stat charts to bring you the updated all-time regular season standings in the LXC. Today we hit week 20 of the LXC regular season and I think that's as good a time as any to send an update. For the sake of preventing confusion, I have substituted in all our LOC names so that it's easy to tell who everyone is: At the top and bottom, pretty typical stuff. It's Shotti and it's Dee. In the middle, things are interesting. Butt continues to dominate, although this has been a tough start to the season for him and he is just one above .500 in 2019. If I may speak freely (I may), I don't think the LXC experiment is working. For one, I still am not adjusted to Sleeper. The app seems cluttered, even on a desktop, and it discourages me from spending extended time on the league. I've noticed several teams, including myself, have started bye week players. In my case, I genuinely did not see they were on a bye because I can't read the website well. In other cases, I'm sure people just forgot or didn't care. For those of us who are playing Headhunters (RIP Jared), I think we can agree the difference is night and day. Headhunters is extremely fun and exciting. LXC is not. Doesn't mean it can't become fun, but as of now it sort of isn't. Maybe it's because it's all the same people. I think at the end of this season we need to consider the next step with LXC. Stat Chat (LOC) *(Cracks Knuckles) Bell of Da Ball has now gone 27 weeks without back-to-back regular season wins. This is 2nd most all-time. *Pain Train becomes the 7th team to lose 50 regular season games. *Shotti and Duck have each notched their eighth season with 6 or more wins. That is a league record. Only one team has a chance to reach seven seasons with 6 or more wins and that's GBM. And let's be honest, that chance is slim. Bust Watch I think it is safe to certify Mixon as a bust this season. We still have half a season but I don't see a way he even reaches McCaffrey's total in 13 games, and McCaffrey has played 6 games. Power Rankings A special themed episode of the Power Rankings. This week's theme is "which LIVE from the Beach Bungalow episode are you?" 1(1). The Duck Punchers (6-1) Beach Bungalow Episode: Luxury Items You'd Take to Mars The crown jewel of the first ten episodes of the hit podcast LIVE from the Beach Bungalow, it is hard to compete with this out-of-this-world episode. Similarly, the league's third highest scorer is hard to beat. At 6-1, Duck can look ahead to securing a bye spot and returning to their 2014 glory days. After this week's battle for first place, they go up against the bottom four teams in the LOC from week 9-week 12. 2(3). Bell of Da Ball (3-4) Beach Bungalow Episode: Places You'd Take an Alien Visitor This episode showed the world just what the podcast was capable of, with an all-time reveal that Pat is deathly afraid of space. The group had great chemistry and despite a rocky start, it seemed like the future was bright. Sources from several league offices have shared a similar sentiment regarding The Stupid Idiots. This team is ready to blow up, possibly starting this week. It's only a matter of time before they are competing along with the heavyweights in 2019. 3(2). RIPDab (4-3) Beach Bungalow Episode: Fruit Armies There are glaring issues with RIPDab, just like how the audio quality in Fruit Armies was a huge setback for the hit series LIVE From the Beach Bungalow (available wherever podcasts can be found). But overall, this is a solid episode...sorry, fantasy team...and they should be able to shake off this funk and get back on top. This week will be tough sledding against the Alien Visitor Butt Fucker. 4(4). The Shotti Bunch (6-1) Beach Bungalow Episode: Replace Tom Hanks with an Animal I wish I could replace Shotti's record with mine. The Tom Hanks episode was full of potential but the draft picks left a lot to be desired. For it being this late in the season, I am shocked we have not seen any sort of regression with the team many are calling the luckiest team in LOC history (many many people are saying this (NO COLLUSION)). Let's see them get lucky this week against the league's actual 6-1 team. 5(6). Paddock 9 (4-3) Beach Bungalow Episode: Businesses Owned by Animals After starting hot, Paddock 9 has cooled down. Their 4-3 record is not reflective of the massive point totals they were dropping in September. But still, similar to the hit episode of the Bungalow "Businesses Owned by Animals," the potential for greatness is there. This episode was one of the Bungheadz favorites of the first ten, and P9 still must be a favorite to make it deep into the Festival. 6(5). Sweet Dee (1-6) Beach Bungalow Episode: Mythical Creatures The episode was so good but just did not get the traction that I thought it would with the fans. I'm likewise still waiting for Sweet Dee to pop off a win streak, but after going over 220 in four of their first five games, they ahve been under 176 in two straight. Sad to say that today's game is essentially their season. Lucky for them they are facing GBM, who they seem to always beat. 7(7). Papa's Posse (2-5) Beach Bungalow Episode: Inanimate Objects You Want to Fight Well, I've kept Papa at 7 all season long and I see no reason to change that now. Might as well give them one more week, this time against reeling Pain Train (who is in 7th in the standings). Papa has now gone seven straight games against GBM without a win and has failed to break 174 in any of those games. At 2-5 they have already blown their shot at repeating their 9-4 campaign from last year, and now it's about hoping that they can get a couple more wins to avoid the 3-10 record that they had from 2012-2013. 8(8). Garoppoblow Me (3-4) Beach Bungalow Episode: Inanimate Objects You Want to Fight Let me list some I want to fight: my fantasy lineup. Injuries. Yahoo Fantasy for not marking players as OUT even after their own team says they are out. I know I'm not inanimate but I'd also like to fight myself for benching two wins and for drafting Donte Moncrief. Anyway, all fantasy aggression aside, this team's goal since week 2 has been to go .500 while they try to settle their roster turbulence. From weeks 3-7, they are 3-2. It's not all bad. 9(9). Pain Train IR (3-4) Beach Bungalow Episode: NFL Mascots You'd Want as Best Friends One of the fab four of 3-4 teams, Pain Train is just not good. Neither was this episode, a rare miss for the often hilarious and always fun to listen to Bungalow Boyz. 10(10). ma ma momma said (2-4) Beach Bungalow Episode: The Podcast Goes To... i was going to make Momma the welcome episode because that's the first of eleven straight episodes that he has not listened to, which I find interesting. Many people are wondering if that's why his team is cursed beyond repair. It's also arguably the worst episode so far, and I'm still not convinced that momma is a good team. But I think so little of this roster that I'm actually going to make them "The Podcast Goes To..." instead. It's the failed podcast that I did last year with Bobecue Chicken (of Headhunters fame). Shockingly, Jared is in a playoff position right now and likely controls their own fate with games remainign against Dee, Papa, and GBM. Matchup of the Week - Birds of a Feather Flock to the Bye Spot No witty Matchup title this week because Shotti and Duck have been featured in so many matchups of the week this season that I'm out of puns. But make no mistake, this is the matchup of the year so far. Two 6-1 teams, each on season high win streaks, in a gigantic battle for the number one seed. Shotti, I swear, HAS to be on the verge of collapse at any moment with how poorly his team has played, but I'm not counting anything out. These two have been going back and forth for years: Other matchups this week (featuring three rematches from earlier this season): * Papa vs. Pain Train (8-7) * Sweet Dee vs. GBM (5-4) * Paddock 9 vs. ma ma momma said (6-5) * Bell of Da Ball vs. RIPDab (3-1) Amazing that the schedule has worked out in such a way that the bottom teams all seem to be playing each other and the top teams all seem to be playing each other. Shoutout to me. This week it's 1 vs. 2, 4 vs. 5, 8 vs 10, 7 vs. 9, and then an outlier with 3 vs. 6 that is still pretty close. Another great week of action. Enjoy.